the nape of her neck,
which in most women has no significance, with her was expressive. A
consummate actress, she exhibited all her skill in the _bolero_, which
represents a courtship; she threw aside the castanets and wrapped
herself in a _mantilla_, while her companion, dressed as a man, was
hidden in a _capa_. The two passed one another, he trying to see the
lady's face, which she averted, but not too strenuously; he pursued, she
fled, but not too rapidly. Dropping his cloak, the lover attacked with
greater warmth, while alternately she repelled and lured him on. At last
she too cast away the _mantilla_. They seized the castanets and danced
round one another with all manner of graceful and complicated
evolutions, making love, quarrelling, pouting, exhibiting every variety
of emotion. The dance grew more passionate, the steps flew faster, till
at last, with the music, both stopped suddenly dead still. This abrupt
cessation is one of the points most appreciated by a Spanish audience.
'_Ole!_' they cry,'_bien parado!_'

But when, unhampered by a partner, this nameless, exquisite dancer gave
full play to her imagination, there was no end to the wildness of her
fancy, to the intricacy and elaboration of her measures, to the gay
audacity of her movements. She performed a hundred feats, each more
difficult than the other--and all impossible to describe.

* * *

Then, between Christmas and Lent, at midnight on Saturdays and Sundays,
the tables and the chairs are cleared away for the masked ball; and you
will see the latest mode of Spanish dance. The women are of the lowest
possible class; some, with a kind of savage irony, disguised as nuns,
others in grotesque dominos of their own devising; but most wear
every-day clothes with great shawls draped about them. The men are of a
corresponding station, and through the evening wear their broad-brimmed
hats. On the stage is a brass band, which plays one single tune till
day-break, and to that one single measure is danced--the _habanera_.

In this alone may people take part as in any round dance. The couples
hold one another in the very tightest embrace, the lady clasping her
arms round her partner's neck, while he places both his about her waist.
They go round the room very slowly, immediately behind one another; it
is a kind of straight polka, with a peculiar, rhythmic swaying of the
body; the feet are not lifted off the floor, and you do not turn at all.
The highest gravity